Identity Politics and Prospects of Intercultural Dialogue

Azhar Adil, Mohammed V University, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Rabat

Intercultural dialogue has become now in wide currency as an emblem of hope for a bright future for humanity. It is sought for not only as a solution to conflicts, but more so as a social and political instrument to manage diversity and variation. The increased world connectivity and transnationalism have given impetus to discussions over difference and identity and the investigations of possibilities of intercultural communication, learning, and critique. Such issues arise essentially from the interconnections of cultures, identities, and languages. Perception of difference among intercultural communicators, in say accent or outfit, predisposes them to experience intense uncertainty about the intercultural situation; resort is usually made to prior knowledge informed by discourses of political difference and disadvantaged by structural constraints; the results are further reproductions of dominant ideologies, resentment and indignation, conflict-laden relationships and failed intercultural dialogue. As a cause and a theoretical stance, the conceptualization intercultural dialogue has been largely influenced by diverse academic theories such as the social sciences theory, communication theory, cultural theory, critical theory. While these stances have contributed to the understanding of the processes of intercultural communication, they are still short of the target at various levels. The present paper discusses a communicative approach to intercultural dialogue that offers alternative ways to counter the entrapments of theoretical extremism, to acknowledge and diversity of relationships, to work towards solutions to seemingly intractable divergences and unrelenting postures in situations of conflict, and to revive hope in human communication.

Bio-data:

Adil Azhar is a holder of a Doctorate in Intercultural Communication and a DESA in TEFL. He is currently an assistant professor at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Rabat, Mohammed V University. He has been a practitioner in ELT for a decade and has made a number of contributions in the fields of TEFT and communication studies. His research interests include TEFL, Teacher Education, Intercultural Communication, Communication Studies, and Research Methodology.

That globalization has caused great changes in the texture of cultures, discourses, and cultural practices is not open to doubt. Besides, cultural encounters, shocks, and clashes have increased, and so have their accompanying discourses and narratives. The need for multi-perspective and multicultural approaches has become imperative to reconsider conventional discourses of assimilation or absorption of differences which undermine diversity.

The conference aims to shed light on issues pertaining to language, culture, and religion, at large from, a pluri-disciplinary and/or multicultural perspective for a better understanding of the multiple, multi-faceted, and highly complex relations between the three pivotal components of the triad, language, culture, and religion.

Focal interest areas include (but are not limited to) tvhe following topics:

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